


not too far from here

by withoutwords



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Coming Out, Family Dynamics, Fluff, M/M, New Jersey, New Relationship, Some angst, Some internalised homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 05:29:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14325630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutwords/pseuds/withoutwords
Summary: “You’re paying for the four of us to go to New Jersey?”“Well, it was either that or Disneyland, and I know how you feel about Goofy.”





	not too far from here

**Author's Note:**

> This runs on the assumption Steve hasn’t been back to Jersey with Danny before, because I honestly can’t remember if he has? Please excuse any glaring issues because I’ve never been outside my country let alone to New Jersey. But I really wanted to write this, so I did! I hope you like it, and thanks for reading x

Steve hides the tickets in a malasada box, wrapped in plastic to avoid them getting dirty with day old fat and sugar stains. It takes a moment for Danny to realise what he’s looking at (or maybe for him to get over the disappointment that there aren’t actually any doughnuts in there).                  

“What are these?”

“They’re plane tickets, Danno. 

“I know they’re - ” he starts, before taking a breath. “I mean what are they for?” 

“For you, and me, and the kids.”

“You’re paying for the four of us to go to New Jersey?” 

“Well, it was either that or Disneyland, and I know how you feel about Goofy.”

Steve half expects some rant about _how people dressed in oversized costumes is unnatural and creepy, Steve, I won’t put my kids through the same torture my parents did, okay?_ but Danny just sits there and stares at the gift as though they’re printed in hieroglyphs.

“I – I talked to your folks and they’re happy to have us. And I know it’s been a while since you’ve seen both your sisters, together, and …” Steve wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t think it would take this much convincing, if he’s honest.

“Hey.” He rounds Danny’s desk, perching on the edge to clap a hand around his shoulder and give him a little shake. “We don’t have to go. I can get a refund and we can spend a few days at the _Maika’i Hotel_.”

“No, no. I’d love to go. The kids will love to go.”

“Alright.”

“Thanks, Steve,” Danny says, finally looking at him properly, finally letting something like a smile play at the corner of his mouth. He covers Steve’s hand with his own. “I mean it. Thanks.”

*

It’s not that they haven’t talked about it. At least, Danny’s talked about it – ad nauseum – and Steve’s mostly agreed with everything he’s said because a) it was true or b) he struggled to say it or c) Danny often decided to talk when Steve was just about to get his pants around his knees and Danny’s dick in his mouth. 

Steve’s been pretty patient with Danny over the years, but sex is a whole other thing.

(“If we’re doing this, we’re doing it for real,” Danny had said just a few months ago, after a torturously long time of flirting and dating and not knowing one hundred percent whether they were both on the same page. “I can’t go half way with you Steve, I care about you too much, _we_ need you too much.”

“Absolutely, Danny,” Steve had told him, a hand around his neck and their faces tucked close to show Danny he wasn’t hiding. “I’ve never been more serious about anything.”)

So they’re serious, and they’ve talked about it, and it’s good.

They just haven’t told any one else yet.

* 

Steve doesn’t hate flying. He's been herded into the back of so many planes that it's become second nature, like driving or surfing. It’s flying with civilians that’s the problem. The smell, and the noise and the incessant bumping of the back of his chair because most people are useless when it comes to sitting still.

His life’s fairly isolated for a reason. 

It’s not so bad this time around. He got an overnight flight so Charlie could sleep, and the rest of the passengers are pretty calm. Danny’s fingers are loosely curled in his own, more relaxed now that the pilot’s smoothed out his take off.

He feels a little bubble of excitement in his stomach, if he’s honest.

“Alright, I got a few ground rules,” Steve says quietly, Danny patting at Charlie’s head as his eyes flutter closed. Danny scoffs at him.

“ _You’re_ meeting _my_ family and you’re the one with the ground rules?”

“I’ve met your family, Danno.”

“You’ve met most of them,” Danny corrects, “And not all at once. You wait until there’s ten people packed into one kitchen arguing about what specific ten herbs Grampa Joe put in his Bolognese sauce. Then, maybe, you can tell me that you’ve met my family.”

Steve can’t hide the grin that unfurls listening to Danny talk.

“What?”

“I just think it’s funny that every mile closer we get to New Jersey your accent changes a little bit.”

Danny pulls a face and swats at Steve’s thigh. “Oh, shut up, it does not.”

“Whatever you say, man.”

“Well? What are these ground rules?”

“Okay.” Steve settles in his chair, careful not to nudge Grace who has her headphones in watching a movie. “First, you have to take me to at least some of these pizza places that are apparently so better than Hawaii’s.”

“As if I wouldn’t.”

“Second, you’re not allowed to trash talk the islands while we’re there - ”

“Right, if you can promise not to compare the weather, or the water, or the - ”

“And third,” Steve goes on, still grinning and still not caring, “You can’t hover.”

“Hover?” Danny repeats, pulling a face again. “What does that mean, hover?”

“It means when your mom wants my help or your dad wants to show me something or, I don’t know, your sister wants to make out - ” Danny hits him and means it this time. “You won’t hover.”

“I don’t hover. I don’t even know what that _means_ , hover.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “You do. And I get it, you worry – but I don’t want you to worry about me, Danny. I want you to go there, relax, and just be with your family.”

Danny’s mouth curls a little, as if it’s itching to keep arguing but is holding back. He slowly tangles their fingers together again, resting his head back on the seat and looking at Steve. “ _You’re_ my family. You’re _our_ family.”

Steve’s breath catches. He squeezes Danny’s hand. “I know.”

*

Arriving in Newark is something of a fever dream. Clara and Eddie are there to meet them, soft and teary eyed and almost too damn happy for Steve to bear. He puts Charlie on his back and Danny deals with the bags and it’s a lot easier than he thought it would be, getting out of there.

Eddie’s got a seven seater, and Steve sits up the front with him, and it’s nice to listen to the soft rumble of his voice as he regales Steve with fond memories of the city. Danny chimes in now and then with his own stories, though Steve imagines they’ve all been censored for the sake of the kids and his mom.

(A few days before they’d left, Mary had asked Danny why it had taken so long for him to get Steve home to Jersey. Danny had given her some long winded speech about the lack of covert ops or something, but it had made Steve think. What was the reason? Sure, New Jersey had been a sore point with them from the beginning – Danny was always so bitter, and Steve was always so jealous. But after that, when things had settled, when Danny had given up the chance to go back there for Steve?

He should have done it then.)

“Well, this is it,” Clara says as he helps her with the last of their things and they shuffle into the house. It’s warm inside – though Steve’s wearing a sweater and more layers then he cares to admit, so it’s not so bad outdoors anyway.

“I can’t wait to see the place,” Steve tells her honestly, meeting Danny and his Dad in the kitchen as the kids take off upstairs. It’s a lot bigger than he pictured, which is a stupid thought in hindsight; they’d had six people in the house when Danny was growing up, they would have needed all the space they could get.

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll get to that,” Danny moans, slumping on a chair at the kitchen table. “Coffee first, please.”

Steve fights the instinct to go over there and give Danny’s shoulders a rub. Instead he takes a seat himself, laughing when Eddie jokes about Hawai’i making him soft.

“Actually, I take offence to that Mr. Williams,” Steve says, ignoring Danny’s scoff. “I’m a lot better in the mornings than Danny."

“Oh, well isn’t everyone,” Clara teases, giving Danny a pinch as she goes to help Eddie with the drink.

“Look, this is great people, all the Ganging Up On Danny, I knew it was going to happen,” Danny whines, propping his head up with one hand and barely opening his eyes. “But can it wait until I’ve had caffeine and at least another eight hours of sleep? Please?”

*

Their first kiss was so chaste it had made Steve think of his first grade girlfriend, Francie. She was one of the coolest girls Steve’s ever met, with her high top sneakers and her _Blondie_ t-shirt. They’d been playing football in her backyard and she’d tackled Steve to the ground and she’d pressed their lips together so hard and fast Steve could taste blood.

It had been a great kiss.

Danny had kissed him like that. Quick and rough and determined; butter in one hand and all purpose flour in the other. Steve stood in the middle of the kitchen with his mouth open, waiting for his brain to catch up – but instead Danny put the things down and came back.

“Can we,” he’d said, removing the space between them again and pulling at Steve’s collar. “Just.”

Their second kiss had been a lot gentler, a lot slower. Steve had made some stupid noise from the back of his throat before twisting a hand in Danny’s hair and opening for it. It was wet, a little dirty, Danny’s lower back hitting the edge of the kitchen bench before Steve got him up onto it, got his fingers dug into Danny’s back.

“Thank God,” Danny had said around a sigh, tipping his head back and bumping it on a cupboard. Steve buried his face in Danny’s neck and held on tighter.

“I know. I know.”

*

They spend their first day laying low. Steve feels disoriented, waking up to an empty bed – he and Danny had been given their own rooms while the kids (Grace begrudgingly) had to share. It wasn’t his favourite part of the trip; they usually spend so many of their nights wrapped around each other that falling asleep alone had almost been hard.

Steve wasn’t used to that feeling. 

Around the breakfast table, Charlie sits on Steve’s lap and Danny sits by his mom and the stories keep coming hard and fast. Even Grace is engaged – which is getting harder to do these days – laughing at Eddie’s stories about a young teenage ‘D-Man’ who’d always been a little different from the rest of them.

“Would you stop giving my son ideas?” Danny protests, but Charlie just grins at him with a mouthful of pancakes and Steve’s pretty sure they’re safe. For now.

When they’re done they rug up and head outside and all it takes is the smallest shiver from Steve before Danny’s going on and on about how _it’s spring, Steve, we’re practically having a heatwave over here._ Steve argues back, and Danny goes on, and before long Clara and Eddie are giving them those looks they’re so used to. The _are you two serious right now?_ looks.

Grace and Charlie don’t even notice. 

“Daniel used to be out here until all hours of the night,” Clara tells Steve as they watch Danny and his dad taking a look at some of the things Eddie’s been working on. It’s a great place they have, almost text-book with its high, pointed roofs and the shutters on the windows. Even the yard is fairly spacious, lots of lawn and even ground for the kids to play on.

It warms Steve to think of Danny growing up here. Being happy.

“Oh, yeah? Doing what?”

“Oh, whatever the obsession was at the time. Football, or wrestling, or talking to a girl on the phone. We had to get one of those cords that reached all the way down the hall and through the back door.”

Steve laughs. “It must have been a nice surprise getting the phone bill every month.”

“Oh, was it ever! Between him and the girls the line was clogged up 24/7.”

They watch for a little longer, Steve enjoying the sight of Danny in a huge knitted sweater; his ridiculous feet bare and poking out so pale from the bottom of his jeans. Steve knows him well now, and he’s seen him at his most relaxed, but this is different. There’s a sense of belonging; like the city, this town, their house, just welcomes Danny with open arms.

Envelops him whole.

“I thought we’d have a more exciting day tomorrow,” Danny tells Steve when his parents have gone inside and the kids are rolling around on the grass. “See some sights, give the kids a bit of adventure.”

“Sounds great,” Steve says with a smile, looking over Danny’s face and wishing he could kiss it.

Danny just smiles and ducks his head, as if he knows exactly what Steve is thinking.

He probably does.

*  


Danny avoids the busier parts of the city, the next day – showing Steve, Grace and Charlie some of the more local hotspots that are less likely to be full of tourists. The day mostly revolves around food, and music, which turns out to be pretty perfect.

After pizza and cannoli (and this jazz group that Danny somehow knows from way back when), they stop at a zoo, for the kids, which has a conservation program that Steve gets a little too invested in. Danny has to literally pull him out of there with his one million brochures while the kids gush at him about the souvenirs they conned Danny into buying.

“I can hear the money in my bank account jingling,” Danny jokes as they get back to the car. Steve bites down on a comment about paying for more things because he knows Danny will just argue that he bought them over here.

“If your mom makes cannoli we could just live on that for the rest of the trip,” he suggests instead and Danny laughs.

“Look who’s turning into a sweet tooth now. I’m never gonna get my fair share of the donuts at work.”

“Nuh-uh Danno,” Grace chimes in from the backseat. “You told Uncle Steve if he talks about work he has to put money in a jar.”

Steve barks out a laugh. “Looks like that bank account’s empty now, man.”

Danny just throws Charlie’s stuffed giraffe at him.

They don’t have long to wind down at Danny’s parents’ place before his sisters are arriving for dinner. Steve’s pretty confident he’s going to forget everyone’s names, but he shakes hands and accepts hugs and tries not to look too smitten when Danny’s got his sister’s son over his shoulder and is being silly with the kids in the back room.

Steve hates to admit it, but Danny was right. All the extra people in the house is almost overwhelming – he has a lot of get togethers at his place but this is different. They’re all so familiar, and close, that Steve can almost feel the walls cracking from all the love they’ve packed so thick in there.

Steve never knew family that way.

Not until Five-0.

“So Steve, tell us,” one of Danny’s sisters say as they’re sitting around the dinner table. “Are you seeing any one right now?”

“Christ, Stella!” Danny protests, while Clara admonishes him, and Steve tries to keep smiling.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Steve assures her when she throws her hands up at Danny. Apparently that’s a family trait. “Um, I am seeing someone, actually.”

“Oh, you are?” Clara almost looks as disappointed as her daughter, and Steve holds in a laugh. “Danny didn’t say.”

“Why would I?”

“It’s kind of new, I guess?” Steve tries to explain, finding it difficult to avoid eye contact with Danny who’s stabbing at vegetables on his plate. All the kids are at the other end of the table nattering amongst themselves, but Steve’s not sure it matters. They’ve kept it quiet from them too, for the most part – but if Grace was to ask Danny, Steve doesn’t think he’d lie.

“So, not serious?” Stella asks, and this time Danny only throws her a look.

“Oh, no – I mean, yeah,” Steve “Yes. Definitely serious.”

“Okay, enough of the grilling,” Danny’s brother-in-law Ted comes to the rescue, grabbing the bottle of wine to offer more to everyone. “Steve didn’t come all the way to New Jersey to answer questions about his love life. He’d much rather talk about the Steelers and the Patriots, wouldn’t you Steve?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Steve agrees, although half of the table is moaning and at least two people throw their napkins at Ted.

When Steve finally risks a look at Danny he’s still stabbing at his plate, his mouth set in a tense line like he does when he’s holding back.

Steve decides not to push him on it.

*

It was a few weeks of heavy make out sessions and flirting at third base before Steve and Danny went on any proper date. Steve hadn’t really thought about it like that until some time later, when Danny was having a go at him about it. To Steve’s credit, they’d practically been dating since the day they met, only now they’d gotten their heads out their arses long enough to do something about it.

“You kept saying, but why, but why,” Danny had teased one night, after a particularly great evening of booze and sex. “ _Because I’m trying to figure out if you want me like I want you, you schmuck, why do you think_?”

Steve was laughing, pulling Danny closer to him. “I just didn’t get why you’d want to take me somewhere expensive when we could have just gotten our usual. Or had take out!”

“What else was I supposed to do, take you to a movie? Make you go bowling?”

“We could have gone surfing.”

“You hate surfing with me.”

“Not if it’s just the two of us.”

“Oh, right.” Steve couldn’t see Danny’s face but he’d known he’d rolled his eyes. “Hey, Steve, do you just want to hang out at your place and watch me fall off a surfboard over and over and over again while I figure out if you’re gonna let me in your pants later?”

“That sounds perfect.”

“Of course it does, you ape.”

“Alright,” Steve started, rolling Danny onto his back and getting up on all fours above him. “My perfect date with you would be, a couple beers, you, me, the kids and some meat on the grill. Maybe some music playing – no Bon Jovi – and a little dessert for after. That’s all I want. That’s _everything_.”

“You’re a simple man,” Danny had teased him, but it was soft, and reverent, and he leaned up for a kiss.

*

Danny wakes him up the next day, sitting on the edge of the bed and still in his sleep clothes. The door’s closed, and Steve can’t hear any nearby noises – so he pulls Danny down next to him and kisses him good morning.

“I didn’t actually come in here for this,” Danny mumbles, getting their legs tangled together and his hands in Steve’s shirt. “But I’ll take it.”

“So you should. I haven’t done that in like, three days.”

“How does he cope?”

“I really don’t know.”

Danny just smiles and kisses him again. Just gentle, fleeting touches that pull at Steve’s insides. “I got a call last night from an old buddy of mine. He asked if we were free to come to a barbecue today.”

“Oh, okay, who is he?”

“His name’s Jack. We used to work in the same precinct.”

“Well that’s cool. Are we taking the kids with us?”

“Well I came in here to ask you if you wanted to go but yeah, I thought it would be nice for the kids to come. Grace was good friends with Jack’s daughter, once upon a time. She might like to catch up.”

“Sounds good. Let’s do that.”

This time when Danny smiles at him it’s a little more heated, coming in for another kiss that’s open mouthed and gritty. Steve rolls onto his back, and Danny pushes his tee up, and he’s mouthing down the length of Steve’s naked torso while Steve tries not to pull too hard at his hair.

“ _Fuck_ , Danny,”

“No time for that,” Danny teases, nosing at Steve’s shorts where he’s starting to get hard, fingers curled at the waistband to pull them down.

There’s a sudden, screeching, “Daddy!” from somewhere downstairs, and when Danny curses and sits up onto his knees Steve’s really not sure who’s more disappointed. He looks so beautiful, right there, his hair all mussed and his lips red; Steve doesn’t mind keeping quiet for Danny’s sake, but sometimes he wants to tell the whole world.

_He chose me._

“Do you take I.O.Us?”

“You’ll have to ask my dick,” Steve jokes, and Danny laughs and ducks down to get closer to it. Steve sits up enough to push him away, and Danny’s still laughing as he throws a final look over his shoulder and disappears out the door.

(Steve’s definitely more disappointed.)

It’s a cold day, but it’s not raining when they get to the park where Danny’s friends are. Apparently it’s a birthday party, and there’s a huge crowd; Danny spends a good half hour introducing Steve to everyone while Steve tries to ignore his grumbling stomach. He wonders if that’s the effect of being in New Jersey – why Danny’s such a grump before he’s had food.

At one point Danny disappears, and while Steve keeps an eye on the kids he gets caught up talking to a woman named Beth whose brother has done a few tours in Afghanistan. Steve always finds the line of conversation hard. It’s nice to be able to relate to people affected by war, but it’s hard to know what’s too much.

“But you seem to have managed the transition fine,” Beth says, meaning, _you’re back in the real world and you’re okay_. “Having the task force, and everything else.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Steve agrees, and decides not to say, _I’m one of the lucky ones._ She’s been hinting about her brother’s PSD, and he’s tried hinting back just a little, but again. He hates to overstep. “Five-0 has been really important for me. So has Danny. And – and the team.”

Beth gives him a radiant smile, clasping at his shoulder and telling him, “I’m so glad to hear that, Steve. That’s wonderful.”

When Danny comes over with food for them all, Steve’s by himself again, watching over the kids. Charlie’s playing soccer with a few boys around his age and Grace is playing on her phone with someone Steve hopes is the girl Danny spoke about.

“Who was that woman you were talking to?” Danny asks him after waving the kids over.

“Oh, uh, I think she said she’s friends with Jack’s wife?”

“Oh, okay. I saw you talk for a while.”

Steve recognises the look Danny has on his face and laughs. “She didn’t ask me for my number, Danno, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Did I say that?”

“She has a brother who’s just finished his last tour. She wanted to talk about what it was like, becoming a civilian again.”

“Oh. Right. I suppose I didn’t make that any easier for you,” Danny mutters, paying entirely too much attention to his plate. The kids are just starting to head over now, Charlie calling at the others to wait for him.

“Oh no, not at all,” Steve drawls, grinning at Danny when he looks over. “I’ve hated every last minute of it.”

*

The days seem to be disappearing fast. Steve hadn’t considered the possibility that he’d be the one sad to leave. He missed home, and the team, and being able to step outside and straight into the surf. But those were just things he wanted. He had everything he _needed_ , right here. Danny, the kids, their family.

“Why don’t we have the kids tonight?” Clara asks Danny as they’re tidying up after lunch. “You can take Steve to _Fontaine’s_ or, what’s that place on High street that you love?”

“ _Rickfords_?”

“Sure. You guys can have a meal, maybe catch a game or something.”

Danny looks at Steve who gives him a nod. He would hate to seem too eager at the prospect of having Danny to himself again. To be able to touch him again. Just hold his hand. “That sounds great, Ma. You sure you don’t mind?”

“Of course not. Go ahead.”

They decide to wait until Charlie’s tucked in bed before leaving. Danny tells him they’re going out, that if he wakes up Danny and Steve might not be home yet, but Grace and Nan and Pop will be here for him. He seems okay.

Danny does take Steve to _Rickfords_ in the end. It’s dark, and mellow, and there is a game up on the TV – and it feels so very Danny that Steve can’t help but smile. They get some beers, and find a booth, and tangle their feet together under the table while they catch up on everything that’s been going on.

“You don’t think Jerry’s sitting in your office right now, plotting the overthrow of the entire system?” Danny jokes. The waitstaff bring over their steaks, and something that Danny called ‘Disco Fries’ which makes Steve wonder why he’s so offended my Loco Moco.  

“No, I don’t think,” Steve counters, giving Danny a kick. “Besides, I’m more concerned about Eric burning the place down.”

“I forgot to tell you he FaceTimed us the other morning, you were still in bed.”

“What time was it there?”

“Who knows? If he was drunk he hid it pretty well, because Charlie was playing him a song on that harmonica Pop found him and Eric was a very dutiful uncle and clapped along the whole time.”

Steve laughs, “He’s a good kid.”

“I suppose.”

“He’s lucky to have you.”

They continue on about the team, about the separate stories they’ve been hearing that don’t add up. It warms Steve’s whole body to hear Danny talk about Hawaii like home. To talk about the team the way he talks about his family when he’s not on the mainland.

“Look, Danny, about the other night,” Steve says, feeling like he’s been holding on to it for days. “When your sister was asking me if I’m seeing any one.”

“Yeah?”

“You know I wouldn’t tell them about us.”

“Jesus, Steve,” Danny says around an exhale, leaning back in his chair. “I know you wouldn’t. I’m not worried about that.”

“Okay. You just seemed …” Steve decides to trail off. He has no idea how he seemed. Angry, maybe, or upset? Worried that things were getting too real?

“I just hate that I’m lying to them. I hate that I’m making _you_ lie to them.”

“It’s okay. It’s not forever.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Danny scratches at the tabletop with a fingernail, not looking at Steve as he talks. “When you showed me the tickets I was scared about what it might mean. I was the one who said I wanted serious. I was the one who … who pushed - ”

“You didn’t push anything.”

“Okay so not pushed, maybe, but – but insisted, you know? I don’t want you to think I didn’t mean it. I don’t want you to spend your money to come here and then feel like I’m just casting you aside.”

“Danny,” Steve cuts in, and he’s firm as he puts a hand out to clasp around Danny’s. “No. This was my idea. I wanted to come here. It had nothing to do with, with anything. I just wanted you and the kids to have this. I just wanted to share it. That’s all.”

“Yeah,” Danny says, twisting their fingers together and taking a sip of his beer. Danny’s eyes always manage to say so much to Steve, and he gets it. He knows Danny cares about him a lot. “Thank you.”

When the taxi gets them home just after midnight, Danny grabs Steve’s hand and pulls him around to the back of the house. Steve is hissing at him, _what the hell Danno, where are you taking me_ , but for a change Danny doesn’t bother to talk before ushering Steve into the tiny garden shed and closing the door behind them.

“You’ve been driving me crazy,” Danny tells him, like Steve’s in trouble for something, pushing him up against a bench or a wall, Steve has no idea.

“What are you - ” Steve starts, but Danny’s pulling him down for a kiss, hot and sour with beer and so familiar that Steve could cry. Danny’s got an arm around Steve’s shoulder, and a hand battling with his belt, and when he pulls away from the kiss he’s muttering,

“Wearing those stupid sweaters, and your stupid red cheeks in the cold, and sleeping in the bed I was in when I was a teenage boy fantasising about the hot jocks like you,"

“I know we’ve discussed this before but you’ve got issues,” Steve teases, and spins Danny around so that he’s the one pinned to the wall.  

They kiss like they’re starved for it – a lot less skill than they usually have – just getting enough clothes out of the way to get their dicks out, for Steve to get his hand around both of them. The friction of their skin and their hands and their bodies touching wherever they can means Steve’s probably not going to last too long – but the way Danny’s breath is coming short, and shocked, he doesn’t think he’s alone.

“Wait, wait,” Danny pants, making Steve’s hand still. His fingers sting where they’re dug into Steve’s back, his breath warm on Steve’s throat. “I know this is the worst time but I have to – I need to – you know I love you, right? Like, I love you so much that it’s fucking unhealthy. You know that right?”

Steve’s kisses him so rough it probably hurts both of them, nosing at Danny’s cheek and mouthing at his ear and telling him, “I love you too, Danny. I love you so much.”

*

Arguing has always been their thing. _Bickering_ , Lou says, making little beaks with his hands and pecking them at each other. That’s Danny and Steve. They’ve always been like that. Steve remembers one of their first arguments so vividly, side by side in his car with Danny nattering on at him as if Steve had just broken a commandment.

It had been the first of many.

What they didn’t often have were _proper_ fights. They’d had one when Danny almost left Hawaii without telling Steve. Then another when Steve _had_ left without telling Danny. Then a trail of something like them every time Steve almost got killed, or Danny almost went back to Rachel, back and forth and back and forth and too stupid to see what was going on.

The only thing that threatened their friendship was the threat that their friendship might end.

“Now that we’re sleeping together I expect you to be a lot more zen,” Steve had told Danny, early on. They had been eating cereal, bleary eyed on the couch, only half listening to the morning news. “You know, less _bickering_.”

“Oh, okay, so if we’re _zen_ , then you won’t try to leap off tall buildings,” Danny said, flicking his spoon at Steve. “Or jump on a moving vehicle, or blow yourself up in some amazingly, extravagant way.”

“Sure.”

“And, how about you do more paperwork, or pay for more drinks, or, I don’t know, not keep weapons in the backseat with Charlie’s iPad?”

“Sounds good.”

“Then, you might also like to - ”

Steve covered Danny's mouth with his hand. “I’m so glad we had this talk, Danno, I’d hate to think you disagreed with me.”

*

Clara and Eddie plan a ‘going away’ party for their last night in Jersey; regardless of Danny’s endless protests that they’re actually going _back_. Steve wonders how much the tension has to do with throwing a party and how much it has to do with the fact they’re leaving. (Every now and then Danny’s mom will double check what time their flight home is; or his dad will clear something out of a closet and tell Danny to take it; or one of his sisters will call to try and jam their schedule with five more things to do.)

Then, after one too many jibes from Danny, Clara snaps, “Well I can hardly call it a ‘my only son is leaving again’ party can I, Daniel?” and escapes out of the room with a sob.

“I suppose we’ve all got our ways of grieving,” Eddie says to Steve, when Danny disappears after his Mom. Steve understands what he means. Matt. He never comes up in conversation, Steve’s noticed – even when they’re talking about Danny’s childhood, or the siblings’ marriages, or any other thing that Matt would have played a huge part in.

“It’s taken a long time to come to terms with my own losses,” Steve agrees, hoping it’s not completely insensitive to compare that to losing a child.

“Right. Sometimes we can talk about it, and we’re okay. Sometimes it’s too hard.”

“Of course.”

“We are glad Danny’s in Hawai’i,” Eddie tells Steve, as if he needs convincing. “That he has all of you. Even if we do miss him.”

“He misses all of you, too. A lot.”

Eddie spares an emotional cough and Steve tries not to look him in the eye. Danny’s always telling Steve that they’re very similar, he and his dad – and Danny hates sharing his emotions with people he doesn’t know that well. “Maybe one day the whole Williams family will be living in Hawaii.”

Steve laughs. “Right. That would be something to see.”

Later – after Danny and his mom have had a long talk, and Steve and Eddie have set up the tables, and Charlie and Grace have helped with some haphazard decorations – their guests start to arrive. Not just Danny’s sisters and their kids, but friends and cousins and a bunch of other people Steve won’t remember by morning.

There’s so much food – dishes and dishes filled with meats and vegetables and salads and dessert. There’s wall to wall noise, kids running around under foot, and beer flowing freely from one end of the house to the other. Steve’s enjoying himself, enjoys watching Danny talk to everyone with big swoops of his hands, and big laughs from his belly – shooting looks at Steve now and then to make sure he’s okay.

 _Not hovering_ , he mouths across the room at one point, Steve winking at him before getting pulled away by a cousin.

“I want to run something by you,” Danny says to Steve quietly, when they’re huddled in a corner together later on. “I was thinking I’d get Bridge, and Stell, and, you know. Talk to them. About us.”

Steve can’t stop the hand that comes out to grasp at his elbow, ducking his head closer to see him properly. “Danny. I mean, if you _want_ to”

“I _do_ want to.”

“Okay, I just don’t want you to feel like you _have_ to.”

Danny’s shaking his head, playing at the label on his beer bottle, Steve catching the way his hand shakes just a little. “I can’t leave here without telling them. And I can’t – I can’t tell my folks. Not right now.”

“Hey.” Steve gives him a little nudge. “Don’t say that like you’re sorry. Don’t be sorry. Do what feels right, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Steve. For all of it. For everything.”

Steve pulls him in for a hug, careful not to let it linger (though at this point he’s not sure any one would notice). “I’m here for you Danny. Always.”

*

They get a taxi to the airport. Danny tries to convince his parents that it’s less fuss, and won’t be such a hassle to them, and a bunch of other thin veiled excuses no one is falling for. What he means to say is, _I don’t want to cry in front of thousands of strangers_ , and they let it go.

They’re all packed and ready by the time his sisters arrive. Stella gives Steve a once over and says, “Well if it couldn’t be me, at least it’s one of us,” making him laugh.

Bridget, who’s tall like their mom (not short and stocky like the others) is less forgiving. “If you hurt him I’m coming down there,” she tells him in no uncertain terms, fixing him with a glare that is so Danny-like Steve knows she’s not kidding.

“I’d expect nothing less from Danny’s family.”

“You know it.”

Their goodbyes are all as sad as expected. Danny and Grace are stoic with their tears, amongst pleas and promises that it won’t be so long between visits next time. Steve stays close to Charlie, who’s mostly okay; just tired, and confused, and clingy. He sits in the back of the cab with the kids, his hand on Danny’s shoulder the whole way.

They haven’t talked much, not properly. About Matt’s death and how it effects this place. About Danny’s divorce from Rachel and how things changed. There’s so much Steve wants to know about Danny – a whole other layer he couldn’t give himself this time around for the sake of the kids, and his parents, and that’s okay. Steve can wait.

“I want Grace and Charlie to know,” Danny says into a quiet plane later on, the kids asleep on either side of them. “Properly. About me loving you the way their mom loves Stan, you know? Well, more then Rachel loves Stan, let’s be honest, I’ve heard the way she complains about him folding socks.”

“Danny - ”

“And then the team, and our friends, and whoever, I don’t care,”

“Danny - ”

“Don’t – this isn’t about me feeling forced okay?” Danny insists, turning enough that he can get his hand around Steve’s forearm. “I knew that going to Jersey would be a reality check and it was. It’s alright in Hawaii, when it’s just the two of us in that house but I don’t want to hide, Steve. I don’t want to look over my shoulder as if it’s something we should be ashamed of.”

“I know you’re not ashamed.”

“Is this – I mean are _you_ ready for that?”

Steve puts a hand over Danny’s, squeezing tight. “Of course I am. I want that too.”

“Then let’s do it. Please. If you’re ready, and I’m ready, let’s do it.”

“Hey,” Steve says, leaning in to kiss Danny softly. “We will. It’ll happen.”

*

_three months later_

There’s still dirty plates in the sink from two nights before, and a train track put together around the coffee table. There’s a gentle humming from the alarm clock in one of the kids rooms and branches scraping against the windows outside. There’s dozens of shoes by the door, and the coat rack looks more like some weird, modern sculpture, and later they’ll go to the fridge and realise there’s no milk for their coffee.

It’s home.

(“Move in with me,” Steve had blurted out one night when he was watching Danny wrestle with the sink. Again. “I’ve got plenty of space and I’m closer to work and we can car pool, you know, it’s good for the environment.”

Danny had given him so much shit about that last thing.)

When Steve gets back from his swim, Danny’s sitting up in bed, playing with his phone.

“My folks are checked in and ready to go.”

“Oh yeah? Are you still feeling alright about that? Because you know you don't have to - ”

“It's fine, Steve,” he says, and he’s grinning. “I’m good.”

Danny gets onto his knees and moves closer across the bed, motioning for Steve to come and kiss him. Steve’s still wet, which Danny usually hates; but when he gets Danny onto his back, Danny’s not complaining.

“I thought later we could star the grill, have some beers, just relax before they get here.”

“Sounds good. What about right now, though?”

“Right now?” Danny pulls a face, lifting a shoulder indifferently. “I don’t know. Maybe do a crossword? Some Sodoku?”

“Asshole,” Steve laughs, shaking his wet hair at Danny before going back in for a kiss.

 

*

 

"I'm in love with Steve. We're together."

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr.](http://thefancyspin.tumblr.com)


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